Before a girl's turn came to go in to King Xerxes, she had to complete twelve months of beauty treatments prescribed for the women, six months with oil of myrrh and six with perfumes and cosmetics. And this is how she would go to the king: Anything she wanted was given her to take with her from the harem to the king's palace. In the evening she would go there and in the morning return to another part of the harem to the care of Shaashgaz, the king's eunuch who was in charge of the concubines. She would not return to the king unless he was pleased with her and summoned her by name. When the turn came for Esther (the girl Mordecai had adopted, the daughter of his uncle Abihail) to go to the king, she asked for nothing other than what Hegai, the king's eunuch who was in charge of the harem, suggested. And Esther won the favor of everyone who saw her. She was taken to King Xerxes in the royal residence in the tenth month, the month of Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign. Now the king was attracted to Esther more than to any of the other women, and she won his favor and approval more than any of the other virgins. So he set a royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti.Esther 2:12-17 (emphasis mine)

It crossed my mind today, that Esther was one smart girl.

While other girls asked for (I'm presuming) jewelery, clothes, perfume and all other things that they liked and thought beautiful (and wanted to keep if they were sent to the Harem), Esther sought the council of someone who knew the king and his preferences, and then asked only for those things that would please the king.And then it struck me... when I'm presenting my never ending lists of things I 'need' (read: want) are they things that I find pleasing, or that I think God wants me to have, or do, or whatever; or things that I know that the Lord finds perfect and beautiful and needful? Am I asking for empty things of no worth, or things that are everlasting and fully satisfying? Things that I can store up in Heaven? Or things that will perish away here on eath at the End? Do my requests please Him, or grieve Him?

How I long to only ask the Lord for the desires I have that I know are placed there by Him! So that when I arrive in Heaven, I am crowned as one who pleased Him, and sought to be thought beautiful by only Him.